Francis Picabia created Here, This Is Stieglitz Here (Ici, c'est Stieglitz) in 1915, after having relocated to New York from Paris earlier that year. While in New York, the Cubist painter met the American photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who would later organize an exhibition of Picabia's works at his legendary gallery 291 and collaborate with him on the Dada publication 291 in which Here first appeared. In this portrait, Picabia is clearly referencing Duchamp's machinist aesthetic as well as his ironic wit. Part of a series of machine portraits of his artist-friends in New York, Here depicts Stieglitz as a broken bellows camera with an automobile brake attached to it that is in motion. It is important to underscore that this series of machine portraits did not celebrate the hyper-mechanized culture of the early twentieth century. Machinist imagery formed a vocabulary that Picabia drew upon in order to capture the modern human spirit. His work is not a comment on the frenzied fascination with which contemporary culture viewed the machine but, rather, a demonstration of how such mechanized symbols can successfully articulate the seemingly opposed values of an individual's sensibility. Picabia has written "Ideal" in an old-fashioned, delicate, highly detailed script that effectively contrasts with the modern-day, sleek machine upon which it perches. The elaborate Gothic font hearkens back to an outdated mode of portraiture and, generally speaking, of painting, against which Picabia is clearly working. More importantly, it addresses Stieglitz's own idealism that, according to those in his circle, had failed to inspire Americans toward self-discovery through art and photography. Indeed, Stieglitz's goal was too grandiose, hence the lofty placement of "Ideal" above the mass-produced object-an object that connotes a commercially driven reality more characteristic of America at this moment in history. Spearheading the effort to introduce the dominant artistic practices of Europe to American artists, Here embraces the humor with which Picabia and Duchamp mocked traditional artistic styles and techniques, and that would characterize their proto-Dada practices during the time they lived in New York.

New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "The Decade of the Armory Show: New Directions in American Art 1910–1920," February 27–April 14, 1963, no. 75.

City Art Museum, Saint Louis. "The Decade of the Armory Show: New Directions in American Art 1910–1920," June 1–July 14, 1963, no. 75.

Cleveland Museum of Art. "The Decade of the Armory Show: New Directions in American Art 1910–1920," August 6–September 15, 1963, no. 75.

Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "The Decade of the Armory Show: New Directions in American Art 1910–1920," September 30–October 30, 1963, no. 75.

Art Institute of Chicago. "The Decade of the Armory Show: New Directions in American Art 1910–1920," November 15–December 29, 1963, no. 75.

Buffalo. Albright Knox Art Gallery. "The Decade of the Armory Show: New Directions in American Art 1910–1920," January 20–February 23, 1964, no. 75.

Museum of Modern Art, New York. "The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age," November 25, 1968–February 9, 1969, unnumbered cat. (p. 87; as "Ici, c'est ici Stieglitz [Here, This is Stieglitz]").

Houston. University of St. Thomas. "The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age," March 25–May 18, 1969, unnumbered cat.

San Francisco Museum of Art. "The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age," June 23–August 24, 1969, unnumbered cat.

New York. Wildenstein Gallery. "Modern Portraits: The Self and Others; an Exhibition Organized by the Department of Art History and Archaeology of Columbia University in the City of New York," October 21–November 28, 1976, no. 93.